Three women claim that they experienced sexual misconduct from U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland in the years prior to him becoming a U.S. ambassador.
“In one case, a potential business partner recalls that Sondland took her to tour a room in a hotel he owns, only to then grab her face and try to kiss her. After she rejected him, Sondland backtracked on investing in her business,” ProPublica reported. “Another woman, a work associate at the time, says Sondland exposed himself to her during a business interaction. She also recalls falling over the back of a couch trying to get away from him. After she made her lack of interest clear, she says Sondland called her, screaming about her job performance.”
ProPublica added, “A third woman, 27 years Sondland’s junior, met him to discuss a potential job. She says he pushed himself against her and kissed her. She shoved him away. She says his job help stopped.”
Sondland testified before the House Intelligence Committee last week as part of the Democrasts’ impeachment inquiry hearings. In the hearing he made statements that both political parties used to bolster their cases on impeachment.
In a statement, Sondland denied the accusations against him, writing, “In decades of my career in business and civic affairs, my conduct can be affirmed by hundreds of employees and colleagues with whom I have worked in countless circumstances. These untrue claims of unwanted touching and kissing are concocted and, I believe, coordinated for political purposes. They have no basis in fact, and I categorically deny them. There has never been mention of them in any form during the 10 to 16 years since they supposedly occurred, although such a complaint could easily have been aired through multiple channels. These false incidents are at odds with my character. It is distressing that this underhanded journalism was initiated by a source angry that I long ago declined to invest in her magazine, the same magazine now presenting its owner’s outlandish claims as if the reporting is somehow objective.”
Sondland lawyer Jim McDermott said in a letter: “Notably, what each of these three women share in common is that they pursued Ambassador Sondland for financial and personal gain — an investment, a job, and insurance brokerage work — and he declined their proposals.”
“Given the timing of your intended story, a reasonable conclusion to be drawn is that you are attempting to affect Ambassador Sondland’s credibility as a fact witness in the pending impeachment inquiry,” McDermott continued. “Given the politically charged climate in which current events are unfolding, some might consider this to be veiled witness tampering.”
It is worth noting that ProPublica, which is funded in part by Democrat megadonor George Soros, has falsely reported on the Trump administration in the past.
“ProPublica has issued a correction for mistakenly saying in an article that Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee to head the CIA, was involved with the treatment a terror suspect and falsely stated she mocked the suspect,” The Washington Examiner reported last year. “Although Haspel, who has been with the CIA since 1985, was in charge of a covert CIA prison in Thailand where detainees were subject to waterboarding and other interrogation methods in 2002, the ProPublica story falsely stated she was directly involved with the torture of a prisoner by the name of Abu Zubaydah. Zubaydah was waterboarded at the CIA prison on 83 occasions.”
ProPublica’s report, which was released as Haspel was undergoing the confirmation process to become the Director of the CIA, was instantly aggregated by numerous mainstream publications.